


Knew A Phoenix In My Youth

by Squashers



Category: In the Flesh (TV)
Genre: Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-09-04
Updated: 2014-09-04
Packaged: 2018-02-16 03:06:03
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 429
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/2253501
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Squashers/pseuds/Squashers
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Simon and Kieren explore the cemetery where Kieren and Amy rose. They make a small but important discovery left there from 2009.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Knew A Phoenix In My Youth

**Author's Note:**

> So I'm reading Jane Eyre for one of my Victorian Literature courses, and a line in the book inspired me to write this. If you've read the book before you may be able to guess what it is.  
> Poem title is from W.B. Yeats' "His Phoenix".

They traverse the cemetery together, reading the names and epitaphs on the collapsed graves and the ones that have remained undisturbed. Most were poetry, some were quotes or bible verses. An older gravestone from the 1986 said “She said she wouldn’t die until she made it a century. A century and a day, and she was satisfied.”

Simon is seated on the undisturbed grave next to Kieren’s, tying bits of grass together in one long chain for no reason other than to have something to do with his hands. Kieren runs his hands over his own headstone.

"Rubbish epitaph, really. I think Amy was lyin’ when she said she liked it."

"It doesn’t suit you, no." Simon agrees. "Needs to be more poetic. It’s so childish. Says nothing about you, about who you are."

Kieren traces the words with a thumbnail, then abruptly stands and moves to Amy’s old grave, still sunken in and grown over with weeds. “Amy’s suited her, though. She was so strong.”

"She held on to life with both fists, that’s for sure. I’m not surprised she was one of the first to drag herself out of the ground." Simon squeezes Kieren’s shoulder before kneeling to examine the headstone. A mirror to Kieren only moments ago, he traces the lettering with a thumbnail. His motions freeze on the ‘i’ in ‘dying,’ and his hands splay against the stone. "Wait. Look."

——--

It is 2009, and a pair of students are drunkenly picking their way across the cemetery, discussing poetry in solemn tones. They’re dressed in school uniform, but their makeup is heavy with black and their boots are thicker and darker than standard. They flop down against separate headstones, unaware that both graves are relatively new, with the dirt still dishevelled and little grass yet growing.

"Hey, look." One giggles and carves a word into the side of the gravestone she’s sitting on. The other joins in, carving the same word on the side of the one she reclines against. They talk for a moment more as they perfect their lettering, then footsteps in the dirt startle them from their spots and they retreat back toward the forest.

A father trudges across the cemetery, an already-wilting bouquet clutched in his hands, twisted at the stems from his worrying at them. He stops in front of one of the headstones and quietly begins to speak, face twisted in grief. Then he sets the flowers down against the cold granite before turning away, vision too blurred by tears to notice the new declaration carved doubly into stone:

_Resurgam._

**Author's Note:**

> Resurgam means "I shall rise again" in Latin.


End file.
